10-12 Castle Street

This is a Grade II listed "artisan-classical" terrace of 10 bays on Castle Street, originally comprising 4 houses of 3 storeys with attics. The design is near symmetrical, with a pediment spanning the 4 central bays and a strong visual rhythm created by a continuous cornice over the ground floor, supported on fluted Ionic columns that articulate the original property divisions and frame the doorways. The first floor features alternating paired round-arched windows linked by balconies.

The front elevation is rendered in stucco, drafted in the lower storey and scribed above, with rusticated angle pilasters at the corners. The roof is slate, set on bracketed eaves with brick chimney stacks. The ground floor contains a central tripartite sash window, though the overall disposition of detail is asymmetrical, reflecting the unequal division into separate properties. Ground-floor windows are 12-pane horned sashes.

The original property divisions were as follows: Nos 6 and 8 at the right (north) end are 2-bay houses with doorways in the right-hand bay, although No 6 has only a single window in the upper storeys. No 10 was originally a 2-bay house, probably with a lower-storey shop beneath the central pediment, while No 12 was a 4-bay house. Nos 10 and 12 are now amalgamated into a single property.

The doorways have doors incorporating round-headed panels and plain overlights, except No 12 which has a small-pane overlight. Windows to Nos 10 and 12 are framed by moulded consoles with Celtic interlace ornament below the ground-floor cornice. The first floor has 2-light casement windows with transoms, set within round arches in paired outer and central bays, with cast-iron balconies of lattice-work above a Greek key frieze. The upper storey contains 9-pane sash windows, horned to Nos 10 and 12 and hornless to Nos 6 and 8, with a sill band running across. A shallow open pediment spanning the central 4 bays features a round-headed sash window in a rusticated architrave.

The rear is constructed of rubble stone with horned sashes, and projects out on the right side with a rendered wall and wide bracketed eaves.

Internally, the right-hand doorway leads into an original through passage. The original No 10 retains a dog-leg stair built at the rear, rising to the first floor only. Another open-well stair survives from the first floor upwards and has plain balusters and moulded tread ends.